Today I witnessed someone’s Skyrim character die in one of the most Monty Pythonesque ways possible: by eating all the food in all the land and bursting like a stuck pig.

User amelix34 took to the Skyrim subreddit just the other day to reveal a little experiment they’d been saving up for in the form of a heavy gorging fest (via GamesRadar). 

You’ve seen the jokes. “Wait one second,” you say to your enemy, mid-battle, as you pause to look at the menu and consume everything in your inventory in an attempt to heal up. But what would happen if you ate 20,000 gold’s worth of food all in one go? Would it still heal you, or would it send you spiralling into a food-induced coma?

As it turns out, this player’s character died horrifically because of it, but not for the reas…

The alt-Victorian survival game Nightingale launched yesterday, and after a full day of release on Steam it’s now laboring under a less-than-stellar “mixed” user rating. Reasons for the complaints are varied, but the main culprit seems to be one we’re all familiar with by now: the servers.

The frustrations with Nightingale are exacerbated by the need to be connected to play, even if you’re going solo. Quite a few user reviews on Steam are actually positive about the game overall, but throw it a thumbs-down anyway because of server wonkiness.

“I REALLY like a lot of this game so far, but this is getting a negative for one giant issue,” one Steam user wrote. “Being always online, even when playing solo, is absolute nonsense. There is no reason a game like this has to be online…

Personally, it brings me some amount of peace to know that, somewhere in the world, people are still firing up Red Dead Redemption 2 and stepping through a doorway back across time to a world that moved according to the deeds of steely-eyed gunslingers and, more importantly, their steely-eyed horses. Even if I’ve moved on in my fascinations, they’re still riding those dusty trails, picking wild carrots and—if my own experience was at all representative of the norm—getting mauled soon after by a large mountain cat. And now, according to the patch notes from a Red Dead Redemption 2 title update that dropped yesterday, that mauling can be enjoyed in glorious HDR10+ splendor.

After all, can it truly be the Wild West without a full, vivid range of contrast and brigh…

Prison Architect 2 is delayed yet again, but this time, it could be for good. We’ve seen the upcoming management game delayed before—due to “new technical challenges” that warranted developers spending more time on stability testing. However, this time, the issue’s  more pronounced. 

“Our continuous internal reviews and beta test groups have highlighted areas that we need to focus on more, mainly performance and content, which we need to address before launch to ensure that you, the players, get a good experience in the game,” the Prison Architect 2 team says in a blog post. “We need to raise the quality a bit more to meet the standards we’d like to achieve with this sequel.”

However, Paradox has also confirmed that it cannot “commit to a new release date” as…

Around two years ago, a wise council of sages, artificers, and mages from across the realm (a collection of people sometimes called a “game development studio”) met in an officious chamber to discuss how to finish Baldur’s Gate 3, a game that would go on to steal about 200 hours of my life—and gain one of PC Gamer’s highest review scores, period.

That’s according to Larian CEO and co-founder Swen Vincke himself, as per a recent post to Twitter. In it, Vincke shows the hallowed halls in which the game developer held a summit yesterday: “2 years ago we came to this exact place to discuss how to finish BG3. This time around it’s to discuss lift off. Spirits are high, morale is good, expecting a flooding any minute now.”

As for exactly what that game is, we’re only a…

Myst is a divisive game, to put it mildly. It helped drive widespread adoption of CD-ROM drives and for years reigned as the best-selling videogame of all time, but it’s also widely derided for its static vistas and obtuse puzzles. I loved it; PC Gamer contributor Richard Cobbett, on the other hand, once described it as the videogame equivalent of chugging a big mouthful of orange juice right after brushing your teeth.

If you’re not sure where you fall on that particular love-it-or-hate-it spectrum, here’s a great chance to find out: the Myst and More Redux collection from Humble Bundle, which includes just about every Myst game ever made, plus a few others from developer Cyan Worlds. For a minimum of $10, you get:

• Myst: Masterpiece Edition
• realMyst: Mastesrpiec…
  

Even in the wake of its sequel, Crusader Kings 2 remains my most-played game on Steam, having swallowed a full 585 hours of my life since it released all the way back in 2012. To be honest? It’s a bit of a cakewalk these days. I’m so familiar with the game and all its systems that it’s not long in any campaign before I’m ruling over all of Europe with some kind of semi-immortal dynasty of genetically perfect demigods. 

Is there anyone out there who can help add some challenge back into one of my favourite games of all time? Can anything be done to make the trials and travails of ruling Europe a bit more trialling and travailing?

Introducing Leper Roulette, a crime from CK2 modder Gembleton. 

Gembleton is relatively taciturn in the description for Leper Roulet…

There’s no way you’re going to lose Wordle on a Friday, not now you’re here. Skip straight to today’s answer if you’ve got no time for games, or take your time with our hint for the August 23 (1161) puzzle if you just need to make those first few guesses really count. It’s your game—enjoy it your way.

Wait, where did the Wordle go? I seemed to solve today’s game so fast that the letters tumbled off my keyboard before I’d even really thought them through. I think I’m about as shocked as I am pleased with myself for that. Hopefully, you’ve had a similar experience—or are about to, thanks to our help.

Today’s Wordle hint

Wordle today: A hint for Friday, August 23

Today’s answer describes a squishy bloodsucking parasite, or someone who ac…

AI has been getting all up in our search results for a while now, with dubious results. While Google’s AI Overviews feature had a rocky reception—what with it recommending you drink urine and all—it’s not the only search engine that’s been experimenting with a good dose of AI on its search pages.

Microsoft introduced LLM-powered chat answers to Bing early last year, and now it’s started experimenting with a “new generative search experience” for a small percentage of user queries (via The Verge). Some users searching for the query “What is a spaghetti western”, for example, are now greeted with a page that not only puts an AI box front and center, but adds sourcing information for the AI result underneath, squeezing the more traditional search results list off to the s…